Parents of teen-agers, do you wait up for them?

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Aurelia

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I have a twenty-yr-old son, a soon to be 17 yr-old son and a 14 yr-old
daughter. When they’re out with friends on a Friday or Saturday night, I can’t sleep until they’re home. So far, daughter doesn’t go out late, but the time is coming when she’ll want to. How do I survive the teen years? (Yes, the 16 yr-old has a curfew, but he always manages to extend it by phoning home and saying he’s going to be a bit late.)
 
**NOPE…**only for the reason that my 14 year old does not go out that late:D .
 
Really, I don’t understand why any teenager, especially younger ones, need to be out past midnight. What good can happen at a party or on a date past midnight? Regardless of your curfew, you should stay awake until the child returns home. Or else how will you know that your child obeyed your rules? Plus, it’s good to greet your teenager, ask them about their evening, and even tuck them in. These small things remind your teens that you are their parent, you love them, and that they matter to you.
 
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Cupofkindness:
Really, I don’t understand why any teenager, especially younger ones, need to be out past midnight. What good can happen at a party or on a date past midnight? Regardless of your curfew, you should stay awake until the child returns home. Or else how will you know that your child obeyed your rules? Plus, it’s good to greet your teenager, ask them about their evening, and even tuck them in. These small things remind your teens that you are their parent, you love them, and that they matter to you.
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Totally agree.I do these things with my son, the only difference is that he does not go out past 10pm…if he wants to hang with friends later than 10pm they are more than welcome to come to our house.😃
And to clarify my earlier post…I do stay awake till my son comes home…I will not stay awake till midnight though since his curfew is 10pm…
 
Aurelia said:
(Yes, the 16 yr-old has a curfew, but he always manages to extend it by phoning home and saying he’s going to be a bit late.)
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So what’s the point of giving a curfew if you are not going to enforce it?
 
Maybe you can just go to sleep in their bed. That way, you know exactly when they come home, and you have a great opportunity to chat with them about their evening.

If you prefer your own bed, I’ve also heard of people setting their kid’s alarm for curfew, and if they don’t shut it off, then the parent is awakened and knows they aren’t home. However, nothing is going to do much good if you just can’t sleep until they’re home.
 
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vluvski:
If you prefer your own bed, I’ve also heard of people setting their kid’s alarm for curfew, and if they don’t shut it off, then the parent is awakened and knows they aren’t home. However, nothing is going to do much good if you just can’t sleep until they’re home.
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Now, that’s a neat trick! 🙂 I’ll have to remember that for when my 10 year old is in high school!

For my 19 year old, who works afternoon shift and graduated 2 years ago, but still lives at home, I call him on his cell phone if I want to know how late he’s going to be. Usually, I only call him when my ambulance pager goes off in the middle of the night, just to make sure he’s safe.
 
I used to sleep on the sofa and set an alarm clock for 15 minutes before the kids were due home. They got a hug and a sniff when they walked in the door. FWIW, I never smelled tobacco or alcohol but I found out several years after they turned 21 that they DID have fake ID and USED it. Sigh.
 
YES!
This is a real necessary pain in my backside but I do it.
Who ever said parenting is easy? No one.
 
My parents don’t wait up for those times I am at home, I let them know I’ll be out late, and they go to bed at their usual time, 11, 12ish. I’m 20.

Until I was ~18ish, they DID wait up for me if I was going to be later than 12, those were very rare occasions (usually had to do with livestock shows I was at and stuff). I was expected to be in the house by 10ish on a general basis.
 
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mercygate:
I used to sleep on the sofa and set an alarm clock for 15 minutes before the kids were due home. They got a hug and a sniff when they walked in the door. FWIW, I never smelled tobacco or alcohol but I found out several years after they turned 21 that they DID have fake ID and USED it. Sigh.
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Some will pull the wool every chance they can. Sigh
And some won’t…what a joy.
 
ALWAYS.

When my eldest, the almost 17, wanted to go to a party I told him he had to be home by 10.30pm. He tried to negotiate, which I had expected. Then I said, actually, you can stay out until 11pm, but now it won’t be a lie if you tell your mates I said 10:30. (That way he didn’t look a wimp, which was important to him at that age).

At 10:20 he decided to come home anyway and found out the next day that the party had been raided 15mins after he had left.

I jst told my kids I couldn’t sleep until I knew they had got home safely, so they didn’t push the curfew.
 
My oldest is 14, so I do wait up, since I have to drive her here and there. I guess once she is old enough to drive, I will do what my mom did when I was a teenager. I had to wake her up when I got home.
 
the oldest, Ryan, is now 16 and driving :eek: . He lives with me during the week because he is closer to his high school and is with my brother, his dad, on the weekends. During the week he is on a strict curfew because he has school work, plays football and needs his sleep. SO he must be home and in BED by 9:00pm…which means he usually is home before that so that he can get his homework done. He eats dinner with me and Grandma, goes to practice, comes home etc. Friday nights, he gets to stay out until midnight after the game.

And when he is at my home I wait up for him.

Last week he said, very off handedly, “Gee it’s nice to see a friendly face when I come home”.

hmmmmmm…maybe the ol’ widow woman whose children are waiting for her in heaven might not be such a bad raiser of teenagers afterall…:hmmm:
 
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LSK:
He lives with me during the week because he is closer to his high school **and is with my brother, his dad, on the weekends. **
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Your sons father is **your brother:confused: **? Please tell me this is a typo.
 
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Karin:
Your sons father is **your brother:confused: **? Please tell me this is a typo.
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He is not my son. He is my oldest nephew. I have spoken so often about them on other posts, and since most people on the forum know I am an obedient daughter of the Holy Mother Church, I take it for granted people will know. Sorry I scared you.
 
Would you mind if a wild, scary teenager gives her :twocents: ?

Okay, I’m not really wild or scary (at least not how it’s normally meant when applied to teenagers) 🙂 . Anyway, my parents always wait up for me, because I’m always supposed to be home before they go to bed, anyway (they stay up late on the weekends). I just got my licence about a month and a half ago (!!!).

It may sound shocking, but I’d like to say to all parents to definitely enforce your rules. A couple of weeks ago I pulled in the driveway 5 minutes late (and got in the house about 8), and I wasn’t allowed to drive to my friends’ houses for a week. I whined about how it was raining cats and dogs, so that I had to drive slower, but my dad just said “Well, I guess you’ll have to plan on it next time.” I talked with him for quite a while, as I was pretty upset. But eventually I realized he was right. Earlier, he had just told me that I had to be home “sooner or later.” But I insisted on a time, because I knew my mom would freak out (she wasn’t home at the time). I wished I had stuck with sooner or later, lol! But when I was talking to my dad, he told me thank you for insisting, because it kicked him back into parent mode. He said that sometimes he forgets that I’m not an adult yet, even though I am 16 (and a half!).

Having said all that, I also want to say, be reasonable! I suppose it depends on how responsible your teen is, the circumstances, etc etc etc. My parents don’t have TOO much to worry about, because I really only go to my friends’ houses (who are mostly Catholic, and all Christian). I’m helping to put on a peer to peer retreat, and usually we’ll have a party at one of the core team’s houses on Friday or Saturday night. My curfew is usually between 10:00 and 10:45, depending on the circumstances.

So I guess the point of this rather long post is, stick to your guns, but be reasonable at the same time (ie, don’t lock your kids up in the basement, or make them come home at 8:00, unless there’s good reason). Oh, and curfew should ALWAYS be 11:59… just kidding. 😃
 
My mom went to bed, and had me wake her up when I got in. She says she woke up at my curfew anyway, but I was still supposed to report in. This changed the summer after my senior year in HS, as I had a night shift, and would not usually be home until 2 or 3 am. She decided that I didn’t need to wake her up at that hour.
I like the idea about the alarm clock, sounds like a good one, just make sure they don’t pay off a younger brother or sister to set it back an hour.

Yours in christ,
Thursday

P.S.
Tell them to wait for college, they can stay out as late as they want, as long as they go to their 8:30 am (or some other ungodly hour in the morning, 9:30 in my case) class the next morning! The first week they will stay out until 5 or 6, and then discover that they need more than 2 hours of sleep. They will then wait for the weekends to do this (thursday through monday for most people at my school!)
 
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Aurelia:
How do I survive the teen years? (Yes, the 16 yr-old has a curfew, but he always manages to extend it by phoning home and saying he’s going to be a bit late.)
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Teen years? I’ve never been able to sleep until I knew my kids were in bed and asleep. From infancy until they day I die I will always stay awake until I know they are safe, so I believe. I think that’s why I’m always the last one to bed in my house…I just gotta know…

I have a 17 year old and a 15 year old. It is not often they are out late, but it has happened. They have to call before they leave the place they were at no matter what time it is and tell me what route they’re taking home (or who’s driving and what other stops are planned along the way if the person is taking several kids home). They know this is for their own safety, especially when someone else is driving, in case there is an accident en route. They know if they are not home within half an hour of that call I’m calling all the parents of the people in the car to see if they made it home and then I’m calling the police. This keeps them from changing their minds on the way home. Even when they were younger, walking or riding bikes or rollerblading to and from friends’ houses, they’d have to call before they left one house to go to an other…constant checking in went on or I’d call those friends’ parents, and if I had to track them down they were grounded for two weeks. It helps that I did call the police on my son once when he left our subdivision without telling anyone in the neighborhood…he did check in when he got to where he was going so I had the police pick him up there to meet us at the station. 😛 It was a good lesson for him, his friends and our daughter and her friends. Mom means businss. 😉

Because they know it’s about safety and not about our not trusting them personally they tell us they don’t mind our rules at all. They actually thank us for caring so much. Once my son forgot to call before he left his friend’s and he didn’t come home at the scheduled hour…when he did come home he stopped in our bedroom to apologize and offered his own grounding. He was invited to another outing the following week and I heard him tell the guys no. I asked why he didn’t go out with them and he told us it was because he came home late the last time. Next month, he said, and sure enough, that’s the way it was. Hasn’t happened again since.

Hubby and I still check in weekly with our parents. We are concerned that they are well. They are concerned that we are well. When siblings speak about an upcoming trip I’ll ask them to call me or emaill right before they leave and again when they are expected to return. They do the same with me. If we don’t call or write then the other will call or right and then scold whoever forgot to check in. Traveling is always risky, especially around the holidays. I don’t think family ever stops waiting up for each other, really.
 
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